Five Pull-Ups Too Much? FitStar Knows When to Push

The FitStar app uses data about your body to help you keep your New Year's resolutions.
Geoffrey Fowler

By

Geoffrey A. Fowler

Dec. 31, 2013 9:46 p.m. ET

Living in an era of phones that monitor our location and watches that record our pulse can make us feel like we're swept along in an information tsunami. Technology should give us more control of our lives, not less.

The gym is one place where data really has the potential to work on our behalf and a new app called FitStar exemplifies where that technology is heading. The hard part about exercise is all the failure. Who wants to be that guy at the health club who can't even do one pull-up?

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Personal Technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler joined The Wall Street Journal in 2001. He has covered technology, media and marketing, U.S. politics and culture, China and the Olympics.

FitStar uses data about your body to eliminate intimidating workouts that lead to broken resolutions. The app creates customized exercise routines, presented in slick videos featuring telegenic NFL star Tony Gonzalez, and tailored to what you can honestly accomplish. Then it keeps adjusting future workouts based on how you actually perform.

Go wobbly after doing just a few push-ups? FitStar takes notice and will limit how many it asks you to do until you're ready for more.

FitStar isn't the first fitness app, but it is one of the first to replace static workout videos with exercises tailored on the fly based your age, weight, your performance with each exercise and the activity of people like you, based on demographics and performance. Its customization software also can draw on data collected by wearable fitness trackers made by Jawbone and Fitbit—devices that on their own haven't been able to motivate me to exercise.

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The app is free to download and costs $5 per month to unlock all its features. It is available only on iPads and iPhones, and hasn't set a date for when it will be available on Android devices.

OK, doing push-ups while staring at your phone is a little geeky. And while FitStar isn't a perfect substitute for a non-virtual trainer, its algorithm works remarkably well. Sweating with FitStar for half an hour in the mornings helped me atone for gorging on holiday gravy and left me with more energy. I plan to keep subscribing to the app.

"It is an attainable workout," says Nick Price, a 27-year-old student from Portland, Ore., who's been tweeting about his experience with FitStar on his iPad over the past six months. Unable to even get started with other workouts, he says he's lost 50 pounds by using FitStar about four times per week and making major adjustments to his diet.

A FitStar workout begins with a tiny version of Mr. Gonzalez on the screen to introduce the first exercise. "We've been doing it since we were little kids—old-school jumping jacks working the whole body," he says.

FitStar's peppy soundtrack (or your own Abba playlist) kicks in, and you're off and jumping. Hopefully you remembered to move the coffee table out of the way.

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A human trainer, of course, can help you correct your form and provides peer pressure to perform. (If you have any injuries, a trainer would modify your routines, which FitStar can't do.)

FitStar approximates the guidance of a trainer with gobs of helpful video demonstrations and tips on form—running commentary that also serves to keep you from feeling lonely. "Light on your feet," chirps tiny Tony during a round of jumping jacks.

The magic comes at the end of each assignment, when the app asks for how long you kept up and to rate whether the exercise was "Too Easy," "Just Right," or "Brutal." That data, which you enter with two clicks after each exercise, feeds FitStar's training algorithm, which then slowly amps up the intensity of your workout to meet your goals, which you select during the app's setup.

To keep you coming back, there are prizes. FitStar offers rewards for completing workouts, such as $2 coupons for Amazon.com's MP3 store.

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FitStar

Shrinking your personal trainer to pocket size has its pluses and minuses. Tiny Tony goes everywhere your phone travels. Most of FitStar's exercises use your own body weight, so you don't have to worry about equipment.

Figuring out where to put your phone during a workout is a challenge. At my gym in San Francisco, which bans cellphones, nobody complained that I was using the app, but I felt self-conscious. Hiding the phone in my shorts pocket didn't work, because I kept accidentally pausing the app. So I set the phone on the floor, against a wall. In the park, I assembled a phone stand from loose rocks. At home, I used the AirPlay feature with my Apple TV to beam the app's videos from my phone onto my TV.

A word about honesty: You shouldn't lie to FitStar. If you report a fantasy tally for how long you can hold a plank, the app will only punish you by amping up your next workout. (Right now, the wearable fitness trackers feed FitStar just data about your overall activity level and sleep habits. FitStar plans to integrate with gear that measures real-time workout data like heart-rate monitors.)

Putting so much data about your body and fitness in the hands of an app would make anyone nervous. The company pledges it won't share data with others without your permission. That could someday include an insurer that offers customers discounts for proving they workout, says FitStar CEO Mike Maser.

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The magic comes when FitStar asks you to rate your performance and whether the exercise was 'Too Easy,' 'Just Right' or 'Brutal.'
Geoffrey Fowler

The app still has some small bugs and the company is in the process of adding needed features like warm-up and cool-down routines. FitStar plans to add the ability to schedule workouts—appointments that the virtual Mr. Gonzalez will pressure you to keep through app alerts and possibly pre-recorded calls. The company also says adding the ability to customize routines for injuries is "high on the list" for their upcoming features.

After two weeks of using FitStar, it has mercifully lowered its expectations on how many push-ups I can do and yet still offers a workout that makes me sweat. Even if I don't have the brawn of a personal trainer, now my phone helps me think like one.

If you're looking for alternatives, we have a fitness game called UtiliFIT. It's progressive (meaning it starts out with easy/ simple exercises and increases your difficulty based on your performance). It also plays like a game, so you can unlock features as you progress and it's socially connected. There's a paid corporate wellness version, but also a free beta server that individuals can play on.www.UtiliFIT.com

The idea of FitStar is great, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. I tried the free app. It asked me some basic information about myself: age, sex, height, and weight, and then gave me a 6 minute test. So far, so good. But after the test, the routine it suggested involved a lot of high impact exercises such as jumping jacks which at my age, 62, is really not a good idea. Moreover, when I chose to continue with the basic app rather than be charged a monthly fee, it no longer worked, or to be precise, it must have switched to an old slow server, because it just spun indefinitely even though at the same location up to that point, it had worked fine. I'm not willing to spend money until and unless the free app works and provides some benefit. Also, I do have an injury, so since it doesn't take that into account, it is of little use.

I use Digifit with a Garmin heart monitor strap on my chest and an ipod. Really simple. Just start the thing when aerobic activity starts and stop it when you're done. I just go on the elliptical machine, listen to tunes on lightweight wireless headphones and study foreign language. Two painful things - studying and exercising oddly cancel each other out somewhat.

Avoid complex schemes, and elaborate technology since it will just conspire against you. I used to join exercise class and didn't enjoy the abuse of well-meaning but ineffective coaches who can be expensive and throw off bad vibes. I found myself quitting a few times with the coaches, but the self-directed elliptical and weight lifting sessions did just the trick - Everyone has some way they prefer to move.

The hardest part is when inevitably the schedule gets disrupted by vacation, busy work cramming projects, etc. It's best to build this inevitable "failure" into the equation since the main thing is to just continue the workouts without beating yourself up.

The cool thing I like about my heart monitor is that it is real time feedback so you can adjust your effort and never be in doubt that you are benefitting. It's also kind of cool to see your history over time. For the "failure" spells of goofing off for 1 or more weeks, the good thing is you can get your heart rate up real quick without much effort so you know you are benefiting.

It doesn't cost you any monthly fees to get off your couch and go for a walk. It doesn't cost you a monthly fee to try a few pushups and situps once a day. It doesn't cost you any monthly fee to watch what you eat and take responsibility for yourselves.

How pathetic. You don't need an app or a gym to get in shape. Buy some kettlebells, find a trainer to teach decent form and you're set for the rest of your life. I've been using them since I was a teen in the sixties.

I haven't tried FitStar yet, but I'm pretty busy and can only spare 30 minutes 4 times a week to work out. I don't want any of those 30 minutes spent in administrative overhead. It sounds like FitStar requires lots of interaction with the app, even after you personalize it with your data.

In truth, there are some activities that are not improved by technology. The world probably has about 10000 times more apps than it actually needs.

The habit of showing up at the gym and doing whatever you can muster is more important than discipline and determination in the long run. What ever discipline and determination is applied, should be towards the habit of saying "Hey, this is Monday. My day to go the gym.." Then you stop arguing with yourself and just do.

"In truth, there are some activities that are not improved by technology. The world probably has about 10000 times more apps than it actually needs."

Totally. Playing around with an app at the gym probably doesn't really help in the long run unless it creates a habit. I've only got two 1 hour slots per week at the gym. I have to use every minute I can to actually work out. :)

I spent some hard earned cash when I was 12, on the Charles Atlas course...provided that he sign a picture (which he or one of his staff did for me). It was the best $5.00 I ever invested as it got me started on getting physically fit and staying that way. A year or two later, I bought the Joe Weider mail order course (1 per week) and when 17, joined a gym owned by an old time wrestler and strongman named Milo Steinborn. He taught me how to use swingbells (now called kettlebells). I made some out of two old dumbells a some pipes/clamps for home use.I'm glad to see the resurgence of them in today's marketplace.Your antique irons provided the same principle.

I found that just committing to getting to the gym was the most important. For my first year of gym membership I hardly showed up at all. I often went "knowing" how terrible and useless I was going to be upon arriving. The weird thing was that it was rarely so bad as I thought, and with such low expectations I mostly did a lot better than anticipated. This built a lot of momentum and helped me continue exercising for several years now.

Weight loss is actually not about one simple thing, which is why it's so hard. :)

Yes, the laws of thermodynamics apply, but the type of calories count AND the relative health of your metabolism/body AND the amount and type of activity are also important.

For instance, it can be easier for some people to lose weight by limiting activity so their appetite isn't over stimulated, triggering over eating. Being a couch potato means they can find they can count calories because their appetite is under control.

People with unhealthy metabolisms can find they've underdone calories for weeks at a time, but their bodies refuse to shed body fat, instead choosing to starve organs and muscles of needed energy.

In other words, calories in has to be less than calories out is only a grandiose vision. It tells people little about what it means to achieve that with a human body setup to survive endless famines that suddenly finds itself in the middle of an endless feast.

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